Indianapolis’ Viehweg is honored by Manchester University
Stephan Viehweg has never been one for sitting still when it was time to stand up for something.
Ask him about his extensive social work with children and he’ll start by recalling working with youth and serving as a Big Brother while still in high school in Dolton, Ill., just south of Chicago.
“One of the things that attracted me to Manchester was the opportunity to do lots of different things,” he says of his alma mater in northeast Indiana. “It was a nice place to blossom. There was a strong emphasis about going out and making a difference in ways that would make sense, whether that was through policy, through practice, or through relationships.”
For making a difference in all of those areas, and embodying Manchester’s charge to improve the world around us, the 1982 graduate has received the Alumni Honor Award, the highest recognition the Manchester University Alumni Association can bestow upon a graduate.
He went on to become founding president of Family Voices Indiana and founding chair of the Indiana Association for Infant and Toddler Mental Health. He served as chair of Mental Health America of Indiana.
Currently, Viehweg serves on the professional licensing board for Health and Human Services in Indiana, as a board member for the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and as interim director of the IUPUI Center for Translating Research Into Practice.
Over the years, he’s served in some capacity with 17 professional, university and church organizations.
“I guess the motivator has been the desire to make a difference,” he says. Particularly where children are concerned.
“I’ve come to a place of understanding that kids don’t have a voice, and so we have to be their voice, because they can’t say the obvious,” he says. “So we need to. And my other mantra has been to say ‘yes’ to opportunities. So that’s why I’ve been involved in a lot of things that have allowed me to make a lot of changes.”
Manchester University, with campuses in North Manchester and Fort Wayne, Ind., offers more than 60 areas of academic study to 1,600 students in undergraduate programs, a Master of Athletic Training, a Master of Pharmacogenomics and a four-year professional Doctor of Pharmacy.
October 2016
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